


Transient Heartbeat

by TheSonsofDurin



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen, Ghost Len, Kübler-Ross model, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-07-24 02:33:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 1,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7489854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSonsofDurin/pseuds/TheSonsofDurin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonard Snart died when the Oculus exploded. He's still very much around, though, not that anyone notices him.  <br/>*The relationships tagged in this are really just hinted at/mentioned*</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

                  Leonard Snart's last words are spoken with loathing and triumph. He has his own thoughts, actions- and the other's will, too, and everyone else, soon. It's fitting that he's the one here, in this position. After all, he spent his whole life trying to make his own way, without Lewis to control him. Without anyone to control him. His last words are simple. _There are no strings on me._  
                  Leonard Snart's last thoughts are of his friends, his family, his home. Of himself. He thinks of who he was just two years ago, and who he is now. He only had two people he cared for, once, that stuck by him and cared for him, albeit in odd ways. Now- now he has his own little group of found family. A home that he never had, even as a child. His last thought is of how Barry Allen would be proud.  
                  Leonard Snart's last sights are his teammates running for their safety and the Time Master's moving into their space. He sees Mick, alone at the Oculus wellspring, waiting for death in an ultimate sacrifice. He sees Sara's face, sad but accepting, after a goodbye kiss. He sees blue flames travel up his arms. His last sight is of the Time Masters, enraged, fierce, desperate, as Druce shouts at him to stop and give up his mission.  
                  Leonard Snart's last feelings, physical and very _there_ , are cold metal and soft lips. They're a tugging smirk on his lips and agony on his arms. There's a solid floor under his feet. His hand is wrapped around the fail-safe, not letting go of the warm surface. The explosion is powerful, ripping through the Vanishing Point and the people nearest. His last feeling is of fiery pandemonium and cold quietus in a mix that should never be possible.  
                  Funny. He's always been known as a survivor.


	2. Chapter 1

                  Leonard Snart wakes in an empty bedroom. _His_ bedroom. The one Rip gave to him on the start of their journey. Everything is in place: the stolen relics, articles of clothing from the several visits in time, his few personal belongings. His parka hangs on the wall where he'd left it.  
                  It's normal.  
                  It's familiar.  
                  It's safe.  
                  It's wrong.  
                  It's wrong because he shouldn't be here. He should be dead, turned to dust from the Oculus. Or, at least, at the Vanishing Point. But not on the Waverider. Not in the clothes he was wearing as he died, not on his bed.  
                 And a part of him is happy.  
                 Whether this is a hallucination, or a Heaven-like afterlife, he's happy he gets to see this again.

~~~  
                 He finds out, quickly, that it isn't either. He's a _ghost_. The others don't notice him, wandering through the halls and standing beside them. He follows Mick when Rip drops everyone off back in 2016, watches as the Cold Gun is given to an amateur thief. He understands why. Understands that Mick can't move on- he can't stand to be alone. He can't face that his partner, his friend, is gone.  
                Len gets that feeling. He'd died to save his friends and save free will- or create it. It'd been the best option at the time- he wouldn't have been able to live if he lost Mick again. Now he regrets it. He wants to be alive, to be able to taste and touch and interact with the world again. He tries to. He talks to Mick and everyone near like they can hear him to answer. He forces his chest to rise and fall like he's breathing, even though he isn't. Even though he can't when he tries. He pretends to walk on the ground even though he glides just over it.  
               He will be alive again, whatever it takes.


	3. Chapter 2

                  Leonard Snart is watching the team talk to this 'Rex Tyler', adding his own unheard input. The Waverider is noisy tonight- is Rex to be trusted? Is he a fake? What is going to happen? Emotions are wild tonight- exasperation, confusion, indifference.  
                  Tension, worry, frustration.  
                  Curiosity, shock, wonder.  
                  But Len is only feeling one thing.  
                  He's irritated.  
                  No. He's angry.  
                  He's angry at being unheard and unseen. At being put in this situation where he might as well not exist anymore, for all the good being a specter has done.  
                  Angry at the team, for ignoring his Cold Gun that rests in his old, also ignored room.  
                  For Mick adopting Ray as his partner. _Mick is his partner only_.  
                  Angry at the Time Masters for using that goddamn Oculus.  
                  Angry at Vandal Savage for ever being born. For taking over the world. For killing Rip's family.  
                  Len is angry at Rip Hunter for recruiting him on the team.  
                  Len is angry at Barry Allen for making him really believe he can do good.  
                  He's angry at Mick for going back in time and telling him that he's a hero.  
                  He's angry. He's pissed. He's livid.  
                  He's incensed with himself, for making an asinine decision.  
                  For letting his emotions get him killed.  
                  The anger consumes him. He wants to destroy something, to scream, to _be_.  
                  Leonard Snart only wants one thing.  
                  He wants the world to rage with him.


	4. Chapter 3

                  Leonard Snart has been dead for approximately five weeks. He's been with people the whole time.  
                  He's been with family the whole time.  
                  Rip has moved on from the death of his wife and child; he has been since he flew the meteor into the sun. Clearly something more happened than just that. Not to say Rip doesn't miss them- he just doesn't spend hours a day mourning them in a dark room.  
                  Sara mourns her sister in solitude, but she isn't alone, as much as that's contradictory. She doesn't let grief get in the way of her work, and doesn't let it outright known when the grief becomes too much. Everyone notices anyway. Jax made her watch a whole season of Parks and Rec without saying why, once, but the reason never needed to be said.  
                  Stein spends a lot of time talking with Rex about the 1970's. Apparently the both of them are huge dorks about that time period. Personally, Len thinks the only good things that came out of that decade was him and Mick.  
                  Jax still makes faces when Raymond says something odd. In the 1700's Raymond introduced himself as Johnny Depp to a worker of the East India Trading Company, and Jax hadn't failed to look unimpressed. When Jax's birthday is celebrated, Len wishes he can do more than stand there.  
                 He still doesn't like Rex Tyler, but there isn't anything he can do.  
                 Leonard sees the way Raymond looks at Mick. He also sees the way Mick drops his guard completely around the scientist. Something Mick rarely did around Len. He's not jealous, though. He just wishes he could tell them to _hurry up and get a room already._ Seriously.  
                 That all leads to him floating in the back of a church during the 17th century while the others go and do their thing.  
                 He'd never been religious.  
                 He'd never been against religion, either.  
                 He just hadn't found deliverance in God.  
                 And yet, after five weeks of being surrounded by people, he can't stand being alone any longer.  
                 If anyone can hear him, it would be a deity.  
                 Like God.  
                 He doesn't want to be like this anymore. He wants to be alive, or nonexistent, but not this.  
                 For once in his life he begs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm kind of hoping people are starting to notice a pattern/the likes, but- take note of how Len acts/feels in the chapters.


	5. Chapter 4

                  Leonard Snart let go of his pride and begged for a change. He let his anger rage through the Waverider. He denied being beyond life.  
                  Nothing.  
                  And now he's lost.  
                  He roams familiar halls and follows familiar people, but he's lost in a haze of despondency.  
                  No one hears him.  
                  No one sees him.  
                  No one talks about him.  
                  The world is meaningless, because he can do nothing.  
                  He stops following the team when they leave the Waverider. Why not? He can't help them anyway. He'd always fancied being alone. He'd never realized he could feel lonely.  
                  Len glides through a wall into his old room. Nothing has changed since Mick left the Cold Gun three months ago. Gideon keeps the room clean, somehow removing dust as it accumulates.  
                  He wants her to stop.  
                  But he can't make her do anything.  
                  He floats there for hours. Or days. Maybe weeks, or months. Without a window, or lights in the room, or people moving in and out, he has no way of telling the time. It's not like he gets hungry, or tired, or anything, anymore.  
                  He doesn't want anything. He doesn't need anything. He floats, unresponsive to everything with everything unresponsive to him.  
                  Being dead is dreadful.  
                  Sara never mentioned this.


	6. Chapter 5

                  Leonard Snart is dead. It's a simple fact. Anyone would agree.  
                  Some people might say he's in Heaven.  
                  Most people would probably say he's in Hell.  
                  No one would have expected him to become a ghost.  
                  He hadn't expected it.  
                  After being dead for a year, he's gotten used to it. He's gotten used to the loneliness, to the absence of hunger and fatigue.  
                  Sara makes puns like he used to. He finds them hilarious, and surprisingly, Rip does, too. Rip never liked it when Len made puns. Not that he liked Len all that much.  
                  Rip doesn't get mad about 'bringing in strays' anymore. Or about the countless extraneous fights that the team gets into. Personally Len thinks it's because Jonah Hex has been with the team for a month and a half. He hasn't been around while the two were alone, but he's still pretty sure Rip and Jonah are more than friends. (He'd actually come to that conclusion the first time the team had run into Hex- after all, what friends wear each others' _coat?_ )  
                  Jax and Stein are experts with their transmutation ability. Finally. Len was already dead by time they even realized that power, but it doesn't mean he didn't find that out anyway. It was pretty hilarious, though, when they accidentally turned Rip's gun into a butterfly. He'd laughed his ass off, watching the whole team try to catch the butterfly without killing it so it could be turned back into a gun.  
                 Mick and Raymond should never be left alone. Ever. They're destruction in human form. Why science called for a microwave to be subjected to Mick's Heat Gun until it melted completely, Len will never know.  
                 Being dead has put a lot of things in perspective. Life moves on. Death is given a bad reputation.

~~~

                  Leonard Snart is dead. He's accepted it. And acceptance is definitely the best part of being dead.  
                  Denial was determined, red with hope and nostalgic happiness.  
                  Anger was black, wild and terrifying.  
                  Bargaining was discontent, ready to give anything for something more than brown loneliness.  
                  Depression was dark blue- gray, a cloud of hopelessness and lost time.  
                  Acceptance is contentedness. It's not happiness, not sadness. It's not indifference or rage.  
                  And Leonard Snart is content.


	7. Epilogue

                  Two years after death, Leonard Snart is standing behind his sister, making his six month old nephew laugh delightedly in his mother's arms. Little Lev likes it when Len sticks his tongue out, apparently. Although, Lisa had liked it too, when she was a baby. (He'd been pretty surprised when he'd figured out Lev could see him, four months ago.)  
                  Lisa looks around, frowning at the apparent blank space her son is staring at. She can't see Len, just like none of the Waverider crew can. He'd been upset by that, once.  
                  He isn't anymore.  
                  He's content being unseen. By most, anyway.  
                  And he's certainly content when Lisa finally gets her husband to use his powers to check for whatever little Lev is seeing.  
                  Lev isn't the only one laughing when Cisco yelps in shock at the sight of Len, hovering just a few feet away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this is the last chapter in this story, but i do plan on writing more and making a series.


End file.
